That Hideous Strength - Context in Space Trilogy

Context in Space Trilogy

Elwin Ransom, introduced in this story in Chapter 7, is the main protagonist of the first two books in Lewis's space trilogy and his point-of-view dominates their narrative. Lord Feverstone (formerly Dick Devine) was a villain in the first novel who, along with the now-deceased Professor Weston, had abducted Ransom to Mars. When Feverstone speaks in That Hideous Strength of Weston having been murdered by "the opposition", he is speaking of Ransom having killed Weston on Venus in the second novel. The first two books fully explicate Lewis's mythology (based on a combination of the Bible and Elizabethan astrology) according to which each of the planets of the solar system has a guiding angelic spirit that rules over it. This mythos is re-introduced slowly and gradually in this story whose main protagonists, the earthbound Mark and Jane Studdock, are unaware of these realities when the story opens.